United keep alive dream of double title glory

BEIJING, April 10 -- Manchester United kept alive their dream of a Champions League and Premier League double when they beat AS Roma 1-0 at Old Trafford yesterday to become the third English side to qualify for the semi-finals.

Carlos Tevez scored the only goal after 70 minutes when he dived in low to head home an Owen Hargreaves cross and secure United's 11th straight home win in European competition.

That put the English champions and league leaders 3-0 up on aggregate, a result that secured a place in the last four and maintained their belief they can win the European Cup for the third time in Moscow in May after the triumphs of 1968 and 1999.

Roma, trailing 2-0 from the first leg, had a chance to get back in the tie with a 30th minute penalty for a foul by Wes Brown on Mancini but Daniele de Rossi blasted over the bar.

United, into the last four for the second successive season and for the fifth time in the Champions League, will now face Barcelona at the end of the month while Liverpool meet Chelsea in the other all-English semi-final tie.

Barcelona beat Schalke 1-0 at the Nou Camp in Wednesday's other quarter-final, second leg to go through 2-0 on aggregate.

United won the Champions League at the Nou Camp against Bayern Munich nine years ago and manager Alex Ferguson is looking forward to returning there.

"Barcelona are a fantastic club and it is a marvellous stadium with great memories for us," he said. "We can't go there and be negative, we have to go there and be positive and if we do that we have a good chance."

Roma coach Luciano Spalletti told reporters if De Rossi had converted the penalty the match would have been very different.

"It would have totally changed the game," he said. "It was a big mistake, a goal then would have made a huge difference. We had other chances but did not take them."

United dominated much of the match at Old Trafford but were never going to repeat their 7-1 home win over Roma at the same stage of the competition exactly a year ago this week.

It was a surprisingly open affair though and Roma, even without injured striker Francesco Totti, posed far more of a threat than the home side would have liked.

United were delighted to welcome back club captain Gary Neville, who came on for the last nine minutes for his first appearance after an injury-hit 13 months.

Defender Mikael Silvestre returned to the starting lineup after being sidelined since last September.

Ferguson had one eye on Sunday's Premier League clash with Arsenal and made five changes from the team that won in Rome, resting scorers Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney among others.